Sophie Hannah - The Wrong Mother

I tuck the letter inside the book, put the plastic bag back in the dustbin and start to walk home. It will take me half an hour. Longer, unless I walk faster. It’s hard-the soles of my feet are stinging so badly from standing on broken glass. I’ve got money in my purse, I could get a taxi. Why aren’t I desperate to get home as soon as I can? What’s wrong with me?

I stop walking. For a moment, I’m convinced I can’t do it. Nick. Home. I will have to say something. I cannot envisage speaking to anybody ever again. All I want is to disappear.

Zoe and Jake. I start moving again. I want my children. I walk faster and soon I don’t notice any more that my feet hurt. It will be okay. Everything will be like it used to be.

My street looks the same. Everything is the same, except me. Esther’s car is parked outside my house. All I have to do is take my keys out of my bag and let myself in.

My head starts to tilt and twist when I see Jake’s pink football in the hall. My breath catches in my throat. The ball is in the wrong place. I need everything to be where it belongs. Jake’s football should be in the cupboard in his bedroom. I pick it up, dropping the Spanish book at the same time. Now there are definitely too many things on the floor: a pink plastic doll’s dummy, a rolled-up copy of Private Eye . I can’t pick them up. Neither can I walk past them.

‘Sally? Sally, is that you?’ A woman’s voice. I look up, expecting to see Esther, but this woman is tall and thin with short brown hair. I’ve never seen her before. ‘It’s okay, Sally,’ she says. ‘You’re okay. I’m Sergeant Zailer. I’m a police officer.’

The word ‘police’ startles me. I take a step back. Everybody knows. Everybody knows what happened to me.

I open my mouth to tell the policewoman to leave. ‘I’m going to fall,’ I say. The wrong words. My legs buckle. The last thing I’m aware of seeing is the black cartoon animal face on Jake’s pink ball, right next to my eyes, enormous and terrifying.

Saturday, 11 August 2007

I open my eyes. This time I think I might be willing to keep them open for a while, see what happens. Everything appears to be in order. I’m still in my own bed. My favourite picture is still on the chimney breast in front of me. It’s a Thai folk painting, a present from a company I did a scoping study for in Bangkok. It’s painted on tree bark, and shows a chubby baby sitting cross-legged against an iridescent yellow background, holding a fish in its lap. Nick’s not keen on it-he says it’s too sickly-but I love it. The baby’s skin is plump and pink. The picture reminds me of my children as newborns.

‘Jake,’ I say. ‘Zoe?’ I haven’t seen them yet, haven’t heard them shouting and singing and demanding things. Then I remember the police were here. Did they send my children away?

I am about to call out again when I hear voices, a man’s and a woman’s. Not Nick. Not Esther. I blink several times as their conversation gets nearer, to check this is real. Their words make no sense to me.

‘He’s not with his family, not at home or at work, not at his mother-in-law’s…’

‘Simon, you’re not his babysitter. He’s a free, innocent man.’

Simon? Who is Simon?

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘You don’t… there’s nothing you’re not telling me, is there? He is innocent?’

I think the woman is the cop from… when was it that I arrived home? How long ago?

‘There’s a lot I’ve not told you,’ says the man called Simon. ‘There’s been no time.’

‘What’s wrong with now?’

She sounds tired. As if she can’t be bothered any more.

‘The French/English song. Stacey’s homework-’

‘Simon, for fuck’s sake! I want to know why four people have died, not-’

‘An Englishman wrote it. All the phrases in it-“rather a giggle”, “burst into song”, “put a sock in it”, “keep your shirt on”-they’re all English sayings. The French versions of them, translated literally, wouldn’t mean the same thing. They wouldn’t mean anything, they’d be gibberish. So the French version can’t be the original. I doubt “put a sock in it” in French means give it a rest, like it does here.’

‘I doubt “give it a rest” means give it a rest.’

I have no idea what they are talking about. My home has been invaded by people who make no sense.

‘Exactly,’ Simon agrees. ‘ “Give it a rest” would mean-’

‘Let it have a nice long sleep?’ The woman laughs. I hear clapping. ‘Full marks, Detective.’

So Simon is also a police officer.

‘Remember the promise you made?’

More sniggering from the woman. ‘Are you quoting Cock Robin?’

‘What?’

‘“The Promise You Made” by Cock Robin. It was in the charts in the eighties.’ She begins to sing. A policewoman is singing outside my bedroom door.

I burst into tears. I remember the song. I loved it. ‘I want my children!’ I yell.

The door to Nick’s and my bedroom is flung open and the woman walks in. Sergeant… I’ve forgotten what she said her name was.

‘Sally, you’re awake. How are you feeling?’

The man who follows her into the room-Simon-is tall and muscly, with a prominent jaw that reminds me of the cartoon character Desperate Dan and a nose that looks as if it’s been smashed to pieces more than once. He looks wary, as if he thinks I might leap out of bed and lunge at him.

‘Where are my kids? Where’s Nick?’ I ask. My voice sounds rusty.

‘Zoe and Jake are fine, Sally,’ says the woman. ‘They’re at Nick’s mum’s, and Nick’s at the shops. He’ll be back in a minute. Do you feel able to talk to us? Would you like a glass of water first?’

It comes from nowhere: a wave of panic that forces me upright. ‘Who is an innocent man?’ I gasp.

‘What? Calm down, Sally.’

‘You were talking about him before. Who isn’t with his family, or at work or home? Tell me!’

The police officers exchange a look. Then the woman says, ‘Mark Bretherick.’

‘He’s killed him! Or he will! He’s got him, I know he has…’

Simon has gone before I can explain. I hear him thudding down the stairs, swearing.

Sergeant Whatever looks at me, then at the door, then back at me. She wants to go with him. ‘Why would Jonathan Hey want to kill Mark Bretherick?’ she asks.

‘Jonathan Hey? Who’s he?’

She stands up and shouts the name Sam.

8/11/07

Charlie gripped the bottom of her seat as Simon overtook a Ford Focus and a Land Rover by swerving to their left and speeding ahead of them in the narrow gap between their sides and the kerb, to a chorus of angry beeps. Charlie could imagine what the drivers of the other cars were saying to their passengers: ‘Probably being chased by cops.’

‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘Hey’s in custody-ask him.’

‘And if he won’t tell me, or denies it? I’d have wasted time I can’t spare, not if I want to have a chance of finding Mark Bretherick alive. Hey locked Sally Thorning in a room and left her to die. What if he’s done the same to Bretherick?’

‘Why are you and Sally Thorning so sure Hey would want to harm Bretherick?’

‘I believe her. She’s spent time with him. She knows his mind better than I do.’

‘But… he killed them all, right? Geraldine and Lucy, and Encarna and Amy?’

‘Yeah. All of them,’ said Simon.

‘Why? Slow down!’ He had scraped the side of a van, was driving at twice the speed limit.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘If you don’t know why, Simon, then you don’t know he did it. Not for sure.’